


Something Broken

by cytheriafalas



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e12 Profiler Profiled, M/M, happy-ish ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:25:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4068376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cytheriafalas/pseuds/cytheriafalas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because I jumped on the train for post-Profiler, Profiled fic. References to, obviously, child abuse. I struggled with voices a little because I don't remember the last time I wrote Criminal Minds. Kind of thinking of expanding this to deal with post-Revelations stuff, so... let me know?</p>
<p>Something was broken in Derek when he came back to the police headquarters with Carl Buford in handcuffs. Spencer didn’t know what it was. He didn’t know what had sent Gideon and Hotch running to Buford’s office, something dark in their faces.<br/>Spencer didn’t pry. They all needed their secrets. Their lives were books lying open, available for anyone who turned to look.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Broken

Something was broken in Derek when he came back to the police headquarters with Carl Buford in handcuffs. Spencer didn’t know what it was. He didn’t know what had sent Gideon and Hotch running to Buford’s office, something dark in their faces.

Spencer didn’t pry. They all needed their secrets. Their lives were books lying open, available for anyone who turned to look.

He tried not to profile. He tried to forget the record they’d all seen, the crimes that should have precluded Derek’s employment with the BAU. The acting out. That record didn’t change Derek in any way. He was still the man who had risked his life again and again to save the team, to save innocents. He sat by cars rigged with explosives. He was still Derek Morgan.

But profiling was part of who Spencer was. He couldn’t not look. He couldn’t not see.

Gideon and Hotch gave Derek extra space on the flight back to Quantico. He flinched when Hotch touched his shoulder in passing. He folded in on himself, making himself smaller, less of a target, when Gideon passed a file to him. He wouldn’t look Spencer in the eye.

His interactions with JJ and Prentiss were short, tense. When Garcia called, his, “Now, don’t you worry about me, Baby Girl,” was light, but his eyes were dark.

He flinched when Hotch touched him. He flinched when Gideon’s arm brushed his.

Spencer tried not to add up points A, B, and C to reach D. But there it was, hanging over Derek’s head, breaking the strong line of his shoulders, shortening his step, dimming his eyes. Spencer lost track of the last time he’d seen Derek smile.

It lasted for days, through a few routine cases, until Spencer couldn’t take it anymore. He wasn’t a confrontational person, but he couldn’t bear to see Derek so broken. Nobody else seemed willing to step up and talk to him, and if the way Derek reacted to Hotch and Gideon was any clue, neither of the two of them would have helped if they had.

It was late when he got to Derek’s apartment, late enough that he expected Derek to either be asleep or out at the bar as he was most Friday nights they didn’t spend flying across the country. He knocked anyway.

Derek answered in jeans and a dark t-shirt, a half-finished bottle of beer in his hand. He looked Spencer up and down, then took a step back to let him in.

“What’s up?”

“Can I talk to you?”

Derek shrugged, shutting and locking the door behind him. He led the way into his living room. “What do you need?”

“Is everything okay?”

Spencer expected it, but it still hurt to see Derek recoil in on himself. His hand tightened on the beer bottle, liquid sloshing around inside.

“I’m fine.”

“You flinch all the time,” Spencer began. “Especially around men. Only around men, actually. Specifically around Hotch and Gideon, men in positions of power over you.”

“Reid, stop.”

“You can’t look me in the eye. With JJ and Prentiss and Garcia… you exist around them. You haven’t been with us since Chicago.”

Derek turned away, crossing to the low table in front of his couch. There were three empty beer bottles sitting in the middle of the table, still damp with condensation. One label lay in shreds around the bottles.

“I’m worried about you. We’re worried about you.”

Derek shook his head, setting the bottle down on the counter between his living room and kitchen with enough force to make the beer froth over the top. He swore and yanked a towel off the back of a nearby kitchen chair, wiping at his hand. He left the mess on the counter.

“I’m _fine_ , Reid.”

“I think I figured it out,” Spencer said, slipping his hands into his pockets. “It makes sense. Carl Buford, the way you’ve been acting, the way Hotch and Gideon have been acting around you. I… I don’t want to make assumptions.”

“You’re assuming I want to talk about this.”

Spencer had never been on the opposite side of that voice, the one he’d heard Derek use on suspects and unruly police officers who had gotten in their way. He’d heard it once before in Chicago, directed at Hotch when he’d asked Derek what his secret was.

“Morgan. It’s just me.”

Derek lifted his head, but he didn’t meet Spencer’s eyes. Spencer could see the pain in his face, some mixture of anger and sadness and fear that added to his certainty. Every second of silence added more weight to the inevitable conclusion. Then Derek nodded.

“Fine. Fine.” Derek dropped onto his couch, rubbing at his temples. “It’s exactly what you think it is.”

Spencer moved the bottles from the table and sat down, close enough they could almost touch.

“I was a _kid_. Buford offered me something I didn’t have. A place to go. A father. But then—then he took me to that cabin and… What choice did I have? I knew what happened to kids like me. We all know. If I didn’t get off the street, I’d end up like Rodney. Or dead.”

“You were a kid.”

“I should have said something. Done something.”

“Statistically—”

“I’m not a statistic.”

Spencer reached out to touch Derek’s arm, then pulled back. He didn’t know the rules for this interaction. He’d had these talks with victims and their families, but never with a friend. And never with someone like Derek Morgan. He’d been the light of Spencer’s life before Chicago. He’d been bright and brilliant and he made the darkest cases manageable. Now Derek was so angry and lost that Spencer wanted to fix it.

“I’m not a victim,” Derek said. He met Spencer’s eyes for just a second, dark pools of confusion and regret, then looked back down at his knees. “I don’t need to be profiled, I don’t need Hotch’s victimology.”

“I never said you were,” Spencer said. He put his hand on the back of Derek’s forearm. It was the least threatening way he could find to give physical comfort. Not a wrist, nothing that could be seen to be restraining, not his knee, which could have been construed sexually.

Derek tensed for a brief moment and then seemed to deflate. He put his hand over Spencer’s, and Spencer could feel him shaking.

“You can’t tell anyone else on the team.”

“They may already know,” Spencer said. “I didn’t say anything, but—”

“If you figured it out, they will.”

Spencer didn’t know how to respond to that. Derek looked up at him again, drawing Spencer’s attention up from their hands.

“Reid, I—”

“What?”

Derek’s hand tightened on top of Spencer’s. Then Derek leaned forward and kissed him. His lips were insistent, and he tasted of malty beer. For a moment Spencer lost himself in that sensation, the taste, the touch, then he froze. Derek pulled away, clamping his hand over his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Derek said, rising to his feet. “Shit, Spence, I’m sorry.”

Spencer caught Derek by the elbow. “Derek, wait. Hang on. It’s not—Hang on.”

“I’m no better than he is.”

“No, no, that’s not it. It’s just… I don’t want you to do something you’re going to regret.”

There was a moment of silence, Derek staring at him wide-eyed and confused. Then he pulled Spencer in for a hug; his grip was tight, hands shaking against Spencer’s back. His chest was broad and firm and warm.

“I’m sorry,” Derek repeated. “I never should have—”

“You didn’t do anything you need to apologize for.”

Spencer pulled back a little to get enough space to look at him, and Derek released him entirely, arms falling down to his sides. He took a full step back, but Spencer shook his head. Derek froze, indecisive. Spencer put his hand against the side of Derek’s neck, feeling Derek’s pulse thrum wildly beneath his palm.

“It’s okay,” Spencer whispered. “Derek, it’s okay.”

Derek leaned into Spencer’s touch, his eyes closing. For the first time since Chicago, he seemed to truly relax. He didn’t seem to be crushed under the weight of his own pain and rage.

“You’re okay, Derek. It’s safe here with me.”

Derek let out a soft, broken sound. Spencer pulled him in again, slipped his arms around Derek’s waist. His shudders had stopped, hands firm on Spencer’s back.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you to kiss me,” Spencer said, voice muffled by Morgan’s shoulder. “It’s that you’re hurting right now. You’re not thinking clearly, and I don’t want to… I don’t want to get my hopes up about something you regret.”

“I won’t regret it.”

Spencer began to gently extricate himself from Derek’s grip. Derek let him go without contention. “It’s Friday night. Saturday morning, I guess. JJ doesn’t have any cases for us this weekend. If you haven’t changed your mind by Sunday night, let me know. If you have, we don’t need to talk about this again. Ever.”

Derek watched him go, and Spencer didn’t look back.

He knew this was only Derek trying to find some way to deal with his pain, somebody to help him forget. Spencer couldn’t be that person, not just once. If Derek wanted someone every night, Spencer was willing to do that. He could do that.

Night slid into day, then back into night again. Spencer spent the weekend at home, like he would have done otherwise, but each tick of the clock on his wall echoed through his skull as further confirmation that Derek had just wanted someone for the night. He’d probably gone and found somebody for the night once Spencer left.

Saturday night became Sunday morning, then Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening. He made dinner and stared blankly at a documentary he’d already seen about the hypothalamus and limbic system. At 10:00, he turned off his TV and changed for bed, having given up on the idea of Derek coming by. At 10:15, somebody knocked at the door.

It was probably one of his neighbors. He’d somehow developed a reputation as the one who could settle disputes with strange tidbits of information. Spencer shrugged into a sweatshirt and pulled his door open. He’d convinced himself so completely that it wouldn’t be Derek in the doorway that when it was Derek in the doorway, Spencer only stood there.

“Can I come in?”

Spencer jumped and stood aside. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

It must have started raining at some point that evening, because Derek’s back and shoulders were damp. Their arms brushed when Spencer went to shut and lock the door, and Spencer stumbled back, folding his arms over his stomach.

Derek was only there to tell Spencer that he’d been wrong and to apologize. He was nice like that. He would explain everything, talk about how he was hurting and he’d needed contact and—

“It’s not about Carl Buford.”

“What?”

“Friday night. It’s not about… I mean, he has something to do with it. Can we sit?”

Spencer led the way into his living room, but neither of them sat. Derek shoved his hands into his pockets and paced the length of the room, eyes flicking toward Spencer every few steps.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t’ve kissed you. I wasn’t thinking straight. I wanted…” Derek let out a little laugh of frustration. “I wanted something that he hadn’t touched, you know? It was so long ago that you’d think it wouldn’t still… I wanted something that was mine. And I thought I could get it here. I thought I’d done so well at keeping that hidden, that it would finally stop mattering. Then you all showed up in Chicago and I panicked, because I didn’t want you to get contaminated by this. I didn’t want him getting to you, too.”

“None of us were in any danger from him.”

“That’s not what I meant. He’s made it pretty clear what his preferences are. He ruins everything he touches and I didn’t want him to spread that to everything that _I_ built for _myself_.”

He finally came to a stop across from Spencer, looking at him with wide, earnest eyes. He paused, like he was waiting for some affirmation, but Spencer was lost.

“I-I don’t…”

Derek crossed to him in two quick steps so abruptly that Spencer barely managed to keep himself from recoiling.

“I want to kiss you. That has nothing to do with him. That’s you.”

He was so close that Spencer could feel Derek’s body heat washing over him, could see the darker and lighter swirls in his irises.

“Can I kiss you?”

Spencer nodded.

Derek’s soft sound of relief almost made Spencer’s knees weak. It wouldn’t have mattered. Derek’s arms were already around him, pulling him in, his lips warm and firm and insistent. This time he didn’t taste of beer. Spencer couldn’t tell what he did taste of, but it was something so warm and comforting that he knew he would never have enough of it.

He had no memory of moving, but somehow he was pressed against the wall, one of Derek’s hands beside his head. Spencer would have been fine kissing Derek for the rest of forever, pretty much, but Derek took a sudden step back.

“I’m sorry.”

“What? Why are you sorry?”

Derek gestured toward the wall and Spencer’s heart crumpled a little. He was so afraid of forcing Spencer, putting him in some situation that would make him uncomfortable.

“Come here,” Spencer said, back still against the cool wall. Derek stepped back in hesitantly, hands resting so carefully on Spencer’s waist. Spencer cupped the back of Derek’s neck, waiting until Derek met his eyes. “You’re not going to hurt me, Derek. If I’m ever uncomfortable, I’ll tell you, and you’ll stop, because that’s the kind of man you are.”

Derek rested his forehead against Spencer’s. Spencer stroked the back of his neck until Derek’s breaths steadied and he relaxed.

“Do you want to stay here? You can stay on the couch or in the bed with me, but we’ll just sleep. I have an extra toothbrush.”

Derek pulled back a little, smiling faintly. “I have a bag in the car. I was hoping… I expected the talking to take a lot longer.”

Spencer kissed him once more, then pushed lightly at his chest. “Go get it. We have work tomorrow.”

Nobody said anything when they walked into work together the next morning, although Spencer didn’t doubt that somehow word had gotten out already. Derek laughed wholeheartedly and without reservation at something JJ said. He called Garcia “baby girl” without sounding like he was struggling to get the words out.

He didn’t flinch when Hotch passed him their newest file, but he did when Gideon’s shoulder brushed. He dozed on the jet, his head on Spencer’s shoulder, something he never would have allowed himself to do the past few weeks.

It would take him time to settle back into the man he’d been before they’d gone to Chicago, but he wasn’t as broken. He would kiss Spencer in hotel rooms after talking to children who had been molested or in the SUV before they stepped out to talk to grieving parents, and the tension would melt out of him.

It was the memory of Derek’s _I love you, Spencer_ that gave him hope when he was bound to a chair in a cabin with a frightened boy, an angry psychopath, and an avenging archangel.


End file.
